


Laugh Quietly

by whaleofatime



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Adventure, Genteel romance, M/M, ninja au, pun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-04
Updated: 2013-12-04
Packaged: 2018-01-03 11:09:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1069760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whaleofatime/pseuds/whaleofatime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lavi and Kanda are students at a ninja school in modern day Tokyo, and passing exams is almost as hard as meaningful relationships. Being ninjas, though, they manage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laugh Quietly

 

Nin-jerks. Hundreds of years of whispered glory and bloody history, and it all culminates in the twenty-first century with a red-headed brat with a missing eye nearly wetting himself mid-lecture, suddenly screaming out “Can y’believe it, nin-jerks!” before breaking into peals of laughter.

 

If Kanda Yuu, young (sole) heir of the Kanda clan had been samurai instead of shinobi, he would’ve cut the impudent bastard’s head right off.

 

(Instead he poisons the boy Lavi’s milk discreetly at lunch-time in the cafeteria, and gets awarded the golden star of the week for sneakiness while Lavi needs to spend extra time in the Chemistry laboratory to fix up his own cure for some quite severe laxatives).

 

-

 

They’re in their early teens now, and Lavi has brashly intruded in on Kanda’s life for a good three years now, each consecutively more aggravating than the last.  That bout of poisoning wasn’t the last of it, and Kanda got increasingly skilled in the arts as he tried to outdo the vast mountain of goddamn stored knowledge in that brain shielded by too-much too-bright hair. The fifth time he’d sneaked some nasty concoction made from the bark of the acacia tree into his meal, Lavi hadn’t been sick for more ‘n half a day before figuring out what he’d been poisoned with and making an antidote.

 

Kanda is incredibly able. Lavi is irritatingly smart.

 

They’d be the darlings of the instructors, if they weren’t so busy being at each other’s throats.

 

With bared teeth and grabby hands, all the time, every time, screamingly. Kanda rarely screams, because growling rarely doesn’t work. Lavi rarely screams, because he does a better job worming his silver tongue into an obliging ear (or down a warm throat).

 

Geniuses, they would be, the teachers sigh, if only they weren’t so stuck on each other.

 

-

 

They’re both sixteen, and currently acing the parkour section of this year’s exam.  It’s a vicious task, scaling the featureless walls of dull buildings mostly erected in hectic madness of economic booms long past, trying to avoid slipping and sliding on black ice, constantly shaking off their baggy woolen clothes so that passersby wouldn’t think they were witnessing moving snowmen.

 

It’s night-time, which is the only consolation, but even that diminishes as anything handy in a concrete jungle. Lavi’s burned his hands on fluorescent signage twice, and Kanda’s got quite a bad cut on his hand from those anti-pigeon stabbing things.

 

Still, though. The two best and brightest are well ahead of the rest of the pack, quick and mostly silent (except for quick inhales when they cut something or push just a little too far and Lavi’s occasional quip about the weather or the people bustling down under them). It’s a solo exam, yes, but ninjas are always meant to work on the greyer side of the law anyways, and the two of them had long ago figured out (very reluctantly on Kanda’s behalf) that they worked at optimal levels together rather than alone.

 

(A scholarship student from the UK, their underclassman had summed it up perfectly. “It’s as though each has too much idiot for one person to bear, but together it’s not too much two.” Mysteries of the world, eh, a ninja knows better than to question too deeply the things that might break down under more intense scrutiny. In that respect, they aren’t unlike particle physicists.)

 

The mission is to steal a mannequin without being seen. The catch is that all the malls are buzzing with furious activity, because of the hectic sales after Christmas. The hook (of course there’s a hook) is that it has to be a mannequin with blond hair and a yellow dress.

 

The mannequins aren’t _planted_ , so they literally had to go from shop to shop and hope for the best; it’s an automatic fail if you didn’t get _something_ in front of Hamamatsu-sensei by daybreak. An automatic fail and expulsion if you’re apprehended in the act.

 

Extra credit if you get one from a shopfront, rather than the back room.

 

Sprinting somewhere near the vicinity of the vast gardens in Shinjuku, they land and roll to a gentle halt behind a giant LED billboard endorsing a fun time in karaoke. Lavi’s out of breath, because he’s bulkier and heavier, whereas Kanda, Kanda’s light as a spring wind (he’s better at not panting like a dog).

 

“I know there’s a F’ever 21 somewhere around here, a massive ol’ monster. Mae-chan was showin’ off a lovely tartan knit she said she’d bought from here, yeah. ‘nd I walked by last week, there definitely was a lady mannequin with a ghastly yellow afro ‘nd a yellow-ish sweater dress in one of th’shop windows.”

 

It helps that Lavi’s got a ferociously good memory. It pissed Kanda off no end because it’s pretty much cheating when they’re taking written exams, but on occasions like these, it really did help.

 

“Stay.” He orders imperiously.  It’s his home turf; he’ll blend in better.

 

“Aye aye, boss,” Lavi calls out cheerfully. “I’ll try ‘nd think ‘f another place with a doll we can use, yeah!”

 

Tch. What probably actually is against the ninja code is willingly co-operating with your partner when you could just grab your winnings and run, but Kanda’s got a solid core of righteousness, he does.

 

It’s why he neatly breaks into one of the upper floors, contorting and sliding in through a window he’d jimmied open. It was but the work of a moment to break into staff quarters (after changing into clothes from the store to blend in, obviously), change once again into the first change of clothes he finds that he fits into, ninja clothes bundled up under one arm like he’s in the middle of re-stocking.

 

It’s a big store with lots of workers, and all those hours spent painstakingly in Mimicry and Camouflage lessons pay off, because he’s the epitome of your average slightly-grumpy teen part-timer grabbing a mannequin to change the display.

 

He drags her to a quieter spot, and changes back into his gear. Maneuvering the lady out without knocking off her wig was hard, but not impossible. Carefully he scales his way up the building, up to where Lavi should be waiting, and sees a sight that makes him scowl immediately.

 

Lavi looks up with a good-natured salute, sitting cross-legged with a mannequin of a young girl on his lap, dressed in a bright yellow polka-dotted dress with long straight ash-blond hair, looking wrong as all hell.

 

“What the shit, Lavi.”

 

Lavi smiles the smile that makes Kanda feel hate with the passion of a thousand fuckin’ suns.

 

“Komui-kun was runnin’ towards the exam center, yeah, ‘nd he was runnin’ too fast and depending on his smart little pulley gadgets too much, he was. I thought I shouldn’t waste more ‘f Yuu-chan’s time! And Komui’s a bright kid. He knows where there’s a friggin’ stockpile of these things, so all he needs to do is double back ‘nd nick some clothes ‘nd hair.”

 

How fucking under-handed (and therefore classic Lavi).

 

But they aren’t trying to knock each other out with stun guns for the right of conquest to this bit of hard plastic, and to be honest Kanda had expected that it would be him that would get double-crossed. Classic Lavi, exceeding expectations when they’re most likely to be a pain in Kanda’s neck.

 

They look ridiculous, pale figures faintly silhouetted against the bright moon, looking like they’ve abducted corpses currently suffering from rigor mortis and strapped them to their backs like the oddest sort of rucksack.

 

They do make it a good two hours before the deadline, and would’ve arrived even faster if they hadn’t taken the long way around to avoid ambushes like the one Lavi had perpetrated. Hamamatsu-sensei looks remarkably unsurprised by the sight of the two of them sneaking in with abducted fake-women, merely ticking off their names from his list and charting down the time.

 

He holds his hand out.

 

Lavi drops both of their school pins (fitted with GPS to make sure no one’s had the exam content spilled to them and prepared beforehand) as Kanda stops two (almost definitely poisoned) ninja stars that had come flying for their heads with a hand ripped from Lavi’s child (it had broken off with a satisfying crunch, too).

 

Hamamatsu-sensei doesn’t bother to hold in the sigh as he collects the dolls. “Welcome to senior year.”

 

Lavi has the audacity to try and high-5 Kanda, and Kanda has the audacity to almost smile.

 

-

 

It’s coming-of-age time, chaps. For the sake of keeping everyone’s personal details private, all kids that turn twenty (turn into _adults_ ) in any one year are gathered together some time in March to be initiated into the real world, shedding robes that they’ve worn since growth spurts stopped taking everyone by surprise for much sleeker, much cooler-looking garbs of seniors.

 

It’s an elevator system; now’s when they head off for university. Ninja university. Which mostly just means the teachers will be less active in trying to maim you since you made it this far, or so they’ve heard. Hamamatsu will still be doing their practical exams, and he looks weary already.

 

Kanda’s been in this institution since he was seven, but even he felt the thrill of minor victory, standing there in the cold spring night as cherry blossom petals whirl all around them like the prelude to the arrival of the flashiest ninja in the world. The new garb is almost cartoonish in design, more suited for a historical manga than the stretchy sportswear Kanda favoured while doing homework. The split toe shoes are… somewhat cool, yes, but they lacked grip and warmth.

All in all, this parody of how a ninja is thought to dress teaches them that to be a ninja, it isn’t what’s recorded and seen that counts.

 

(It’s the things underneath).

 

Still, though. You only turn fake 20 once, and his favourite teacher (Melee, with a specialty for daggers, the dear master, Hachikou-sensei) has just poured him a saucer of sake. It would be an insult to all the generations past if he didn’t indulge at least a little. Theirs is a people that live for little victories in preparation for big ones, after all.

 

He toasts his teachers, he toasts the tree he’s sitting under for shedding her petals to create a different sort of beauty.

 

He catches Lavi’s eye, who’s making noise with the rowdier lot (Arakawa-sensei, the jolly witch of the Herbal Poisons division), and almost toasts him too.

 

His saucer maybe wobbles the tiniest bit, an almost.

 

Lavi laughs loud enough to be heard from the other side of the park, and Hamamatsu flings a sandal at his face to shut him up because you aren’t allowed in Shinjuku gardens after dark. Lavi neatly avoids the sandal, of course, hearing it slap the tree behind him, before grabbing a half-empty bottle of sake and toasting Kanda flamboyantly.

 

Regardless of how obvious or unobvious their natures are, they both finish their drink with their eyes on each other.

 

-

 

It takes the entire batch by freakin’ surprise, when on the first day of ninja university, they’re told to show up in their best university-student disguises in a private university tucked away in the suburbs of Ikebukuro. Cherry trees line the roads getting to it, and Kanda has a really bad feeling about this.

 

He shows up to room 672 of building 7, feeling deeply uncomfortable taking the lift up to the 6th floor instead of some sort of aerial assault. There are civilians in the lift with him, though on the opposite corner of the small lift he sees Kumou (the class expert on natural camouflage) looking hilariously uncomfortable in clothes too fashionable for a man who carefully collected leaves in autumn to make convincing outerwear.

 

(Kanda hadn’t even tried; sportswear head to toe, with a swim jacket he’d stolen from a highschool he’d passed on the way here when it proved too cold in just a shirt for April).

 

They communicate with their eyes, and end up drawing blanks (because both are as lost as each other).

 

People empty out on different floors, chatting excitedly about what teachers they’ll be getting this year, while some obvious freshmen keep sparing glances at Kanda, like they’re trying to dredge up the courage to talk to someone who obviously looks like they know what they’re doing.

 

(Shit, he should’ve just come in from the roof).

 

With minimal fuss, everyone who had attended the coming of age ceremony shows up in the classroom on time, every single student lingering by the doors and windows with an expression of great distrust. Kanda goes to covet the back door to the little classroom; not because Lavi is there (even though he is, dressed in clothes so eye-catching the eye just passed over them in self-defense. What a stupid skill) but because it’s the best location to make an escape from (6th floor after all, and he hasn’t brought his kit to deal with windows).

 

The classroom is a hell of a sight; well-dressed young adults casually hanging about, every single one ready to flee, and a couple even wearing heavy make-up in order to preemptively disguise themselves.

 

The door swings open and slams against the wall, and as one they all flinch, shifting centres of numerous gravities, ready to flee.

 

It’s just Cross (the sniper, and in charge of all the foreign scholarship kids), with an electronic cigarette between his lips and an insulting swagger in his steps.

 

If anything, the kids are now even more poised to flee. Kanda steadfastly doesn’t look as Miyamura loosens a ceiling tile with a modified metal pointer.

 

“Get your panties outta your cracks, ladies and scum. I’m here to tell you that as part of us teachers’ gifts to you lot,” the grin just gets wider, “is a bit of a surprise. A _real_ university education, on top of the usual lessons. Everyone here has to graduate with a _degree_ ,” Cross takes a moment to savour the horror dawning on the faces of kids who know the Latin name of the poison dart frog but not how cells divide being shown the Everest of getting an education to conquer, “and another degree from HQ, within five years, or you’re oooooout.”

 

To be honest, getting a merciful five years instead of the usual four is already more leeway than they usually got in other matters.

 

If only that was where it ended.

 

“And since it’s easier to keep an eye on all of you if you lot enroll in one class, we picked a degree program outta a hat. Welcome, my children,” he coos, “to four years in….”

 

Drum roll, please.

 

“Computer sciences.”

 

Cross laughs and laughs and laughs while everyone else (bar Lavi, who gets a hard-on at the prospect of learning, what the fuck) looks longingly outside the window at the landscape of trees, concrete and escape.

 

-

 

Year three, time to pick out what to do your graduation dissertation on. A large number of students were excelling, not due to any particular interest in the subject, but more as a result of the insane work ethic they’d had drilled into them. Komui is hands-down the lord and master of the IT world, and crows over it a lot when he’s not busy walking into walls, high off of coffee. The man has such an affinity for it that he’s gotten special permission from their teachers to ease off of physical training and just get better and better at hacking and firewalling and all those things that take place in the mysterious aether of the digital world.

 

Kanda’s one who struggles hard. None of the mumbo jumbo in his textbooks make any damn sense to him, and the main reason he hasn’t failed a year yet is because he takes his electives in the Education department, with a slant for Physical Education, and aces those to such an extent that he just needs to scrape by in the core subjects.

 

For that, he’s got Lavi. Or, well. Since it’s mostly unwilling, Lavi’s got him.

 

Everyone was instructed to find lodgings near the university, with a budget in mind set by the ninja school, and Lavi had just shown up a week into their first year with a lease agreement for a marvelous two-roomed apartment nearby, well within their budget.

 

He’d wheedled and whined and promised to be Kanda’s long-range fighting partner for half a year before Kanda had finally given in and agreed.

 

(The reluctance wasn’t so much that he thought Lavi would be a terrible roommate, though that fear is always present).

 

(It’s more to do with his worry that Lavi’s going to be too damn good of a bedmate, which he is.)

 

(Who’s ever heard of gay ninja couples, for fuck’s sake.)

 

The major plus point, though, is that when Kanda’s considering stabbing his eye out with his mechanical pen after his computer refuses to acknowledge his line of code, is the comforting arm around his shoulder (too familiar even if they’ve been sleeping on the same double futon pretty much from the word go) and the muttered corrections interspersed with kisses that are breathed against his ear.

 

Kanda slams backspace aggressively, feeling zealous at the prospect of actually getting this program working before midnight, so he might get a couple of hours of sleep before they need to sneak out for some light infiltration practices.

 

“This shit is so _dumb_.”

 

A warm laugh that would make him shiver if he weren’t a ninja. “’s not th’computer’s fault, babe. ‘m almost sure Cross picked this curriculum just to piss you off, yeah.”

 

To be honest, this isn’t something Kanda would put past the senior instructor. Unperturbed, he carries on scrolling down, eyes roving for any mistakes.

 

He gets a twitch in his temple instead, when he feels Lavi’s freakishly cold fingers (who’s ever heard of a killer in the night with bad circulation) press again the skin of his stomach, having sneaked under Kanda’s heavy knit sweater (way to go erasing your presence, oi).

 

“Fuck off. I need to get this done.”

 

“I agree, yeah. ‘cept the what it is that’s supposed to get done bit.”

 

Shit, can’t Lavi ever be easy and clean and straightforward? Kanda scowls at the redhead who is altogether too close to him (it’s not necessarily unwelcome). “Are you soliciting sex.”

 

Just more of that warm, breathy laugh. This is why they usually can keep their heating bills so low; the man laughs so damn much, always in close proximity. “Pretty much.”

 

Kanda returns his glare to the computer screen; he could ask Lavi to do this for him, and it would even be in the ninja way of things, and he’d get some fun and some sleep and it would all work out great.

 

But that isn’t the Kanda way of things, so he just snarls ineffectively at his monitor, does up his long, long hair in a bun speared by a pen, and shoves Lavi away with a hand to the redhead’s face. “After I get this done. And you’re doing all the damn work.”

 

He doesn’t even wait for the affirmative (that always, ineffably comes) before typing away at the speed of a movie hacker.

 

-

 

Their graduation dissertations are handed in before the start of the New Year, and all that’s left is the final exam before they become proper ninjas, ready to invade the world at large given a good enough an incentive.

 

They’re gathered in the Shinjuku gardens again, for tradition’s sake. The wind is wild and whipping, but no one’s unprofessional enough to wear clothes that flap and flutter loudly. Hamamatsu-sensei’s about to give them their last exam task, and he’s not going to speak above the tiniest whisper.

 

“Each of you will be assigned a former student, your upperclassmen, and they are all currently roaming within a kilometer of Shinjuku station. You have to bring them here, by whatever means necessary. They have strict orders not to kill you, but they weren’t told to be nice.” Hamamatsu hands out brown envelopes to each of them, with the picture of their target and brief information on their whereabouts. Kanda takes note that it doesn’t mention the specialty that the man or woman had graduated in, and that’s a little bit terrifying.

 

Hamamatsu looks at his watch. “You have till dawn. Oh, and if you get caught by the police, you’re out. Your seniors are allowed to call the cops if you alarm the civilians near them, so have fun.” He smiles, and it’s the smile of a mother realizing her kids are all grown up. “Do better than them. I’ll be waiting.”

 

He bows, they bow, and everyone’s pulse is skyrocketing.  This is it, after all.

 

Like ghouls returning to the underworld, one by one the students are swallowed by the night.

 

Lavi catches Kanda’s eye, smiles, and mouths “Knock ‘em dead, Yuu-chan,” before saluting and strolling off, dressed like a handsome young man looking forward to having a good time out on town.

 

Kanda doesn’t hesitate before turning and running, climbing up shop fronts to gain as much altitude as quickly as possible. He doesn’t need to worry about Lavi, he’s got his own problems.

 

(They were going to meet up at Meiji Jingu Shrine to see the first sunrise of the New Year, maybe pray for Kanda’s dissertation that ended up being written within a week under the influence of extreme fatigue and mushrooms, and go for some soba afterwards. They’d tacitly planned it all out, after all.)

 

Baring his teeth at the light-polluted sky, Kanda throws himself into action.

 

-

 

He got lucky. His target was Alma Karma, a shining star of the batch ahead of Kanda’s, famed for his incredible physical prowess. The man had made no effort to be hidden, confident that he couldn’t be taken down. If Kanda had had the freedom to consider failure, he would’ve been similarly convinced.

 

He doesn’t have the freedom, so he tails the man until he’s wiling time away with a mug of beer in a little bar tucked away in the middle of nowhere. Kanda would have preferred somewhere bigger with more space to maneuver in, but there’s not much wriggle room.

 

Not unpredictably, Kanda goes for the straightforward approach. He goes into the bar, sits in a dark corner and buys a lot of drinks, painting the portrait of a man done brung low even as he empties his beers into the potted plant by him. He keeps on for as long as he dares, and it’s 11pm and he’s got no choice. Kanda gets to his feet, feigning unsteadiness, and sways over to Alma.

 

This has to be done fast.

 

Before the man’s even turned to notice him, Kanda throws a punch that looks deceptively weak, but is aimed at a pressure point to stun and incapacitate.

 

The owner of the establishment looks up with some shock and mild concern, but Alma had deflected the blow with a light slap, looking up at Kanda with a challenging grin.

 

It’s a hard job, trying not to grin murderously in response, so Kanda keeps up on his tirade, about how cruel it was, and that he knew Alma was secretly sleeping with his girl, how _dare_ you, bla bla bla, all the while trying to fit in a sneaky hit to knock the man out.

 

Alma playfully retaliates, and it’s hard trying to play drunk while trying to avoid getting slammed to the ground instead. Lucky, lucky him, for getting good-natured Alma, always happy to rise to the occasion.

 

The owner doesn’t even have time to say take it outside boys before they’re barreling out the doors, skirmishing in a side alley that’s mercifully devoid of pedestrians. The fighting escalates, Kanda struggling to keep up, but getting more and more determined with every peal of Alma’s amused laughter riling him right the hell up.

 

In the end, it doesn’t come down to being good ninjas; Kanda’s used up most of his arsenal of secret tricks (he’s not too good at them, even now, sneaky needles and poisoned darts and them), and Alma didn’t need them.

 

It came to Alma beating Kanda down, rightly assuming Kanda should stay down, but forgetting the fact that Kanda listens to the whims of no man, including himself.

 

Kanda had gotten back up as quietly as he could, tasting blood in his mouth, before rushing at Alma and flinging them both off the top of the little cake shop they’d somehow found themselves up.

 

It’s a two-storey fall, and Kanda’s always been good at landings. Alma, caught by surprise, had stiffened up to launch a counter-offensive just as his body hit the ground, and thank _fuck_ , that was enough to knock him out.

 

Kanda used up the rest of his sleepy pills on Alma, made sure he wasn’t dying of any sort of internal injury, and began the long walk back to the gardens, dragging Alma along like he was a saint helping out a dead-drunk colleague.

 

He was a bloodied and bruised mess, but he did manage to get to the Shrine before Lavi got to the front of the long, long line. Cutting into queues is a ninja specialty, though it did leave him huffing, Lavi slinging a supportive arm around his waist while looking irritatingly serene.

 

Kanda would’ve punched the _hell_ out of his bedmate, but Lavi forces a fistful of tarnished golden 5 yen coins into his hand just as they reach the offering boxes, with the air thick with thousands throwing in coins so that the gods might listen to ‘em a little.

 

“To another hell ‘f a year, Yuu-chan.”

 

The clinking of the coins hitting the wooden slats at the top of the offering box is wholly satisfying to a Kanda with a cracked rib, so despite himself, he even gifts Lavi with a nod.

 

Shit, they’ve had over a dozen hells of years. No reason this wouldn’t be another one.

 

-

 

Complacency. Complacency is what gets you, Kanda remembers vaguely, from a lesson on constant awareness from way back when.

 

They’re sitting in the gardens again, like normal people in the day time now; it’s cherry blossom viewing season, and all around are people getting drunk and enjoying the view. They’ve got quite the good spot, close to the pond, privacy provided by watchful teachers and civilians too busy enjoying being civilians to notice them.

 

It’s the most underwhelming graduation party ever, but everyone’s already had a wild time out from graduating from regular people university, so it doesn’t sting or anything.

 

Cross is at the head of the meet, leaning against a cherry blossom tree and smoking a pipe (who does he think he is, a manga baddie or something?). “More of you graduated than I thought would.” Kanda swears he gets a condescending look directed at him, but he’s a ninja computer scientist, so who gives a flying damn? “Well done, I guess. Don’t darken my doorstep again, unless you’re a kunoichi needin’ extra classes on seduction,” he drawls in the direction of the female students, all looking lovely in their going-out clothes and all perfectly deadly. “Get drunk, this is the only time you’re gonna get a drink outta me. And one last special announcement before we can get shit-faced and start on this amazin’ lunch spread provided by our very own vegetable witch, Arakawa-chan.”

 

He pulls out his pipe, taps out some ash, then points at Lavi with it.

 

Lavi’s hanging all the hell over him, so Kanda can feel the man not stiffen up in shock, and instantly knows he’s not going to like what he hears.

 

“Your application got handed in to UN, brat. And they accepted. You’re goin’ to start work next month in Tel Aviv, and then you’re gonna get me a big ass bottle of sake with your first paycheck.” Cross picks up the nearest container of booze, and raises it up. “To all you losers. Hurry up and get cool before your teachers cry in shame, oi!”

 

Kanpaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaai.

 

Kanda feels Lavi try to talk into his ear, try to explain this sudden inevitable parting, but this intimacy is limited only to people he deigns are good enough, and assholes suddenly going to Tel Aviv (where in the hell is that even) without making Kanda aware of their plans, well.

 

He empties out a sachet of mid-grade poison into Lavi’s sake saucer, looking him in the eye the whole time.

 

Lavi’s sigh still reaches far enough to ruffle his bangs. The redhead picks up his drink, drowns it, and wipes his lips. “Sorry, Yuu.”

 

Don’t say those fucking words.

 

(Kanda realizes with very little surprise that he’s probably not suited to this cloak-and-dagger smoke-and-mirrors world.)

 

-

 

He serves active duty for a few years, stealing secrets, rescuing political prisoners, the odd bit of killing when things get too messy, but it isn’t satisfying. He might be the last of his line, but he’s not going to be having kids, he’s pretty damn sure, so what’s the point of pretend-ninja-ing? It’ll end with him anyways, and to appease the spirits of his ancestors he burns extra incense and tutors at the school whenever they need the extra hand.

 

Aside from that, he runs a soba store in the suburbs, right by the train station. It’s popular with salarymen and office ladies heading home after a long day, and it’s close to both his old university and the school.

 

Kanda’s expertly using a cleaver to cut out the soba noodles from fresh dough, lost in slight contemplation of getting heirs for both his ninja training and soba store, when a little bell chimes very quietly.

 

Someone’s opened the front door, despite the “Closed” sign (and it being five in the morning).

 

Someone’s opened the front door and stoppered the bell that hung from said door to stop it from ringing. They weren’t smart enough to check Kanda hadn’t strung up a mechanism to make an alarm sound in the kitchen if the front door’s opened, though.

 

Well. It’s always fun to welcome robbers, Kanda finds. He flicks the cleaver in the air and catches it neatly by the handle instead of losing fingers. Moving on cat-quiet feet (the element of silence has always been a friend, except when he’s angry) he ducks under the swinging doors to go into the front of house, hidden from the front door by the counter.

 

Suddenly, the intruder fucking somersaults over the counter, and mostly from instinct Kanda drops his cleaver, grabs one of the massive metal pots he kept under the counter, and slams it against the back of the body that’s come flying at him like a freakin’ nightmare.

 

The intruder hits the wall hard, trajectory disturbed, and groans when he slumps to the ground (Kanda’s got the pitching arm of a gorilla, after all).

 

“Bloody hell, Yuu-chan!”

 

Kanda drops the pot on top of the gently wriggling man, and picks up his cleaver again. “What the fuck.”

 

Lavi sits up, neatening an expensive suit that looks too natural on him. “The Japanese prime minister took ‘n interest in me, and it looks like th’government’s going t’just plain employ me till ‘m outta commission, yeah. So, uhm.” He holds his hand up, with a V for Victory sign, and how he manages it without feeling shamed out of his mind, Kanda doesn’t know. “Wearin’ th’night as my cloak, I came t’steal y’heart away?”

 

Kanda is angry, of course he’s angry. But he also fundamentally understands his needs and wants, because he’s a simple man, and Lavi is, fortunately or unfortunately, slotted in quite securely within that category.

 

Doesn’t mean he won’t beat ten types of bodily fluids out of Lavi in just a second, though.

 

He jams the cleaver into the wall by Lavi’s head, relishing the look of shock, and then kisses the hell out of him, not pulling away until they’re both a little light-headed and Lavi’s lip is red and swollen.

 

“You fucking nin- _jerk_.”

 

On cat-quiet feet, they go back to being better as a set.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Doing a 30-Day AU prompt I found on Tumblr c: because I've been writing nothing at all for two years now. It started out as a ninja-falls-in-love-with-master fic, but then I wanted to do it modern-day and it just went crazy and so long and I kinda like it but it's kinda weird?!?!? Hope it was fun to read anyways!


End file.
